Background and Aims: Methods: Key Results: Conclusions: Plants vary widely in the extent to which seeds are produced via self-fertilization vs. outcrossing, and evolutionary change in the mating system is thought to be accompanied by genetic differentiation in a syndrome of floral traits. We quantif...

Introduced species frequently show geographic differentiation, and when differentiation mirrors the ancestral range, it is often taken as evidence of adaptive evolution. The mouse-ear cress (Arabidopsis thaliana) was introduced to North America from Eurasia 150-200 years ago, providing an opportunit...

A method for increasing the mass of a storage organ of a plant comprising tansforming the plant with at least one heterologous gene that encodes an enzyme that results in NAD(P)H consumption is disclosed. Preferably the method comprises transforming the plant with a gene that encodes an enzyme that ...

Using seasonal cues to time reproduction appropriately is crucial for many organisms. Plants in particular often use photoperiod to signal the time to transition to flowering. Because seasonality varies latitudinally, adaptation to local climate is expected to result in corresponding clines in photo...

There is growing interest in quantifying genetic population structure across the geographical ranges of species to understand why species might exhibit stable range limits and to assess the conservation value of peripheral populations. However, many assertions regarding peripheral populations rest o...

A species is expected to occur where the prevailing biotic and abiotic conditions fall within its fundamental niche. Geographic range limits should, therefore, occur when the survival and fitness of individuals along ecological gradients is reduced to the point at which populations are no longer sel...

It is widely accepted that species are most abundant at the center of their geographic ranges and become progressively rarer toward range limits. Although the abundant center model (ACM) has rarely been tested with range-wide surveys, it influences much thinking about the ecology and evolution of sp...

• Dispersal may be favoured at geographic range edges by unstable populationand metapopulation dynamics. However, dispersal may also evolve in response togeographic variation in other life-history traits, especially the mating system. Here,increased dispersal at range margins was te...

Premise of the study: We developed 24 nuclear microsatellite primers from an enriched genomic library for the Pacific coastal dune endemic Camissoniopsis cheiranthifolia to study the consequences of mating system differentiation, the genetics of species' range limits, and hybridization with its clos...